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As House Minority Whip Eric Cantor fights President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority on everything from spending to stem cells, the Democrats are racing to introduce him to voters before he can introduce himself.
John Shinkle

Forget Rush Limbaugh.

For all the focus on the king of conservative talk, Democrats may have found a more important villain in House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, a telegenic young Republican trying to bring life to his party on Capitol Hill.

As the Virginia Republican fights President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority on everything from spending to stem cells, the Democrats are racing to introduce him to voters before he can introduce himself.

• At last month’s White House summit on entitlement reform, Obama painted Cantor as a poster child for obstructionism. “I’m going to keep on talking to Eric Cantor,” the president said. “Someday, sooner or later, he’s going to say, ‘Boy, Obama had a good idea.’”

• In a Washington Post op-ed last week, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Rush Limbaugh’s voice “could be heard in the words of new Republican quarterback Eric Cantor.”

• In robocalls aimed at potentially vulnerable Republicans in Michigan, Florida and California, union groups are urging voters to ask their representatives why they’re “following the ‘party of no’ and its Republican leader, Eric Cantor.”

See also

• In a series of TV spots, Americans United for Change identified Cantor as one of the Republican leaders who have stood with Limbaugh and opposed Obama’s stimulus plan.

A senior Democratic aide said Monday that “Cantor is well on his way to being defined. He is ‘Mr. No.’”

If that’s how voters think of Cantor, it’s not exactly an accident.

Americans United for Change spokesman Jeremy Funk said it’s important to define “new faces” who “emerge on the right.”

“Eric Cantor may be a new face, but he is representing the same old policies the right wing has been promoting and that President Bush pursued that have America in the mess we are in today,” Funk said.

“He’s a threat,” said Texas Rep. Kay Granger, a member of Cantor’s Republican whip team. “He’s smart. He’s aggressive. He’s a great strategist. All of the above.”

“He’s doing a good job,” added Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. “Whenever you do a good job, they come after you.”

Right or wrong, some Republicans on Capitol Hill attribute the Democrats’ fixation with Cantor to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel; in some ways, the two were mirror images of one another as they climbed their way up their respective parties’ leadership ladders.

Oh come on, wingnuts, where are you? I always get a laugh at reading your idiotic comments calling Obama a commie-loving socialist anti-christ. Have you ever heard of Bill Simmons' Unintentional Comedy Scale? You guys would rank right up at the top. You know, you try to say something you think is serious but it's so stupid and out of touch with reality that normal people laugh at it? I miss my unintentional wingnut comedy!!!

Yes, I do. And nothing he has said suggests socialism unless you twist his words really, really hard. I've heard wearing a tinfoil hat helps.

You've come up with your own definition of socialism. And here I thought you were using the traditional (read: accepted) definition of a socialist society in which the government controls the administration, production and distribution of all goods and services. But apparently you consider a socialist to be anybody who advocates evening out the great disparity between the haves and have-nots so that the workers who help create the wealth also get some of the benefits. When Obama talks about redistribution of wealth, he's talking about building a stronger middle class, which saw their real income decline under GWB whereas the top 1% control more of the nation's wealth than ever before. A society that allows privately-owned businesses but asks the wealthy to contribute a higher share of their marginal income in order to build a more productive society is not called a socialist society. It's called a fair one.

It also seems to me that Cantor was chosen partly for "Jewish appeal," as was Sarah Palin for "female appeal" and Piyush Jindal for "colored appeal." That is how the GOP thinks about diversity. Just trot one of'em out there and it isn't supposed to matter where Republicans stand on the issues. Cantor is just as much a failure at token appeal as Palin, Jindal and Michael Steele.

"Common-sense solutions"? What solutions - do nothing in a time of crisis, give more tax breaks to the wealthy, hide the true cost of government spending!! Many of us will say no in the next election - NO Cantor!

If Obama has his way with his continuing practice and philosophy of "something for nothing" - the Democratic philosophy - our entire nation will be a Katrina line and toilet. And the "something" we get will be this:

I'm assuming you are referring to the 2003 Bush rate cuts on investment income (Cap Gains & Dividends).

Would you still be opposed to these tax breaks even if they accopmlished exactly what they were intended to ? Preserve private wealth, expand the economy, lower unemployment and generate increased federal tax revenues? Because they did all that in spades! (can I say that?)

Cutting taxes for people who don't pay taxes is not stimulative ... its welfare.

The photo says "As House Minority Whip Eric Cantor fights President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority on everything from spending to stem cells, the Democrats are racing to introduce him to voters before he can introduce himself."

I truly wish the Democrats would stop "racing" around with their immature attempts at psychological warfare and JUST DO THE ACTUAL JOB OF FOCUSING ON THE PLAN FOR BANKS. No one listened when we were warned that Obama claimed on one of his school applications that he had attention deficit disorder. Now we see it in action. Yo Democrats... start some actual SERIOUS and PRODUCTIVE work and stop racing around gossiping like ladies in a beauty salon.

Eric Cantor, the Dr. No? Wow, what a brilliant image to connect to him. Who can ever forget that evil villain, Dr. No.

If Eric Cantor holds dual citizenships, is it any surprise to real Americans if he rejects what's best for the greater number of Americans, or what the greater number of Americans want? Eric Cantor cares only what's good for Eric Cantor... not what's good for the United States of America and its greater number of citizens.